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Kitanemuk language

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Northern Uto-Aztecan language of California, US
Kitanemuk
Native toUnited States
RegionSouthern California
EthnicityKitanemuk
Extinct1940s
Language familyUto-Aztecan
Language codes
ISO 639-3None (mis)
Glottologkita1252
Map of Takic languages. Kitanemuk is to the northwest of Serrano.
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Kitanemuk is an extinct Northern Uto-Aztecan language of the Serran branch. It is very closely related to Serrano, and may have been a dialect. Before its extinction, it was spoken in the San Gabriel Mountains and foothill environs of Southern California. The last speakers, Marcelino Rivera, Isabella Gonzales, and Refugia Duran, lived some time in the 1940s, though the last fieldwork was carried out in 1937. J. P. Harrington took copious notes in 1916 and 1917, however, which allowed for a fairly detailed knowledge of the language.

Morphology

Kitanemuk is an agglutinative language, where words use suffix complexes for a variety of purposes with several morphemes strung together.

Phonology

Consonants

The consonant phonemes of Kitanemuk, as reconstructed by Anderton (1988) based on Harrington's field notes, were (with some standard Americanist phonetic notation in ⟨angle brackets⟩:

Labial Alveolar Palatal Velar Glottal
plain labio.
Nasal m n ŋ
Plosive p t k ʔ
Affricate ts ⟨c⟩ ⟨č⟩
Fricative v s ʃ ⟨š⟩ h
Rhotic r
Approximant l j ⟨y⟩ w

Word-finally, h becomes [r], and all voiced consonants become voiceless before other voiceless consonants or word-finally.

Vowels

Front Central Back
Close i ɨ u
Mid e o
Open a

See also

References

  • Anderton, Alice J. (1988). The Language of the Kitanemuks of California. PhD. diss., University of California, Los Angeles.
  • Mithun, Marianne (1999). The Languages of Native North America. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

External links


Uto-Aztecan languages
Northern
Numic
Western
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Serran
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Tepehuan
Tarahumaran
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Italics indicate extinct languages
Languages of California
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Algic
Athabaskan
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Non-Indigenous
Indo-European
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California Indigenous peoples of California
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